Scholar: Free Press Rules Vague

April 06, 1991|By PATRICK LEE PLAISANCE Staff Writer

WILLIAMSBURG — History is a poor guide for journalists and government leaders trying to decide how much freedom the press has on a battlefield, a First Amendment scholar said Friday at the College of William and Mary.

``There seems to be a basic question on the control of the dissemination of information on one of the most important exercises a nation can ever be involved in,'' said Vincent A. Blasi, a professor at Columbia University School of Law.

Blasi, also a visiting professor at the Institute of Bill of Rights Law at William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law , discussed unanswered First Amendment questions during a speech to about 100 students and law scholars from around the country.

The group has gathered for the 1991 Research Conference for the Bicentennial of the First Amendment.

Blasi said legal challenges probably will decide the validity of restrictions placed on the press by the Pentagon during the Persian Gulf War. But he added that courts are undecided about whether the press has had a history of access to the war front.

``If you look carefully at history, it was mixed,'' Blasi said.

He cited the unlimited access reporters enjoyed during the Mexican War and much of the Civil War, and contrasted that to the policy of Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf III, commander of the U.S. forces that invaded Grenada in 1983, who threatened to fire upon private ships hired by reporters trying to cover the event.

During World War II, Blasi said, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower placed a high value on press coverage of his campaigns and ensured that reporters landed on the beaches of Normandy with soldiers during the invasion in 1944. But in the Pacific theater, Blasi said, Gen. Douglas MacArthur barred reporters from telling the public about the effects of radioactive fallout from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

In a featured speech to the three-day conference that continues today and Sunday, Blasi said that the Supreme Court has yet to confront several fundamental questions on the First Amendment.

``What exactly do we know about free speech? We don't have anything like a societal consensus on this issue,'' Blasi said.